Cutting the cord means moving from a wired cable or satellite line to service delivered over your internet connection instead, watched through an app on a device like a Firestick, Roku, or Android TV box. The picture and menu look different day to day, but the bigger change is the bill: a monthly cable and satellite average of $70-130 compares against a flat $10-a-month plan over 12 months, or $120 total for the year. The internet connection you already pay for carries the video, so there's no separate line charge stacking on top of a streaming plan.

1. 1Cord-cutting moves delivery from a cable line to your existing internet
2. 2The device (Firestick, Roku, Android TV) plays the stream, it doesn't store the bill

Cable's on-demand section is usually limited to a rotating selection tied to specific channel deals, refreshed on the provider's schedule rather than yours. A VOD library of 219,577+ titles is built to be searched rather than browsed, closer to how a streaming app works than how a cable guide works. That size matters most for cord cutters replacing a household habit of flipping through cable's on-demand menu, since the library needs to actually hold what people go looking for, not just headline a big number that looks good in an ad but thins out fast once you start searching.

Cable outages are usually tied to weather or line damage and can take a technician visit to resolve. A streaming service depends instead on server uptime, which is why the number to ask for is 99.99%, meaning about 53 minutes of downtime across a full year. That's a specific, checkable claim rather than a general promise of reliability. Before switching, it's worth testing that number for yourself: a $5, 24-hour trial is long enough to catch a channel group that stalls or a picture that doesn't hold during a busy evening.